All posts tagged ‘Titan Books’

No, this isn’t a post about the 1980 cult-classic film, Flash Gordon. And I do apologize if the Queen song remains firmly stuck in your head for a few days — it’s been stuck in mind for a few weeks now as I’ve plowed through Titan Book’s first two volumes that reprint the classic Flash Gordon comic strip drawn by Alex Raymond. I cannot tell you my exact age when I first discovered Flash, Dale, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and Ming the Merciless, but I know it was in elementary school. I had a couple of small paperback books that reprinted early black and white Flash storylines and I was hooked.

I’ve always been a fan of early pulp science fiction. The fins on the rockets, the sweeping curves of the ray guns, the clothing and space helmets… the future they presented never arrived. Every planet was breathable, most problems could be solved with a laser blast, and travel from planet to planet was faster than a drive from home to grocery store. And Flash Gordon had all of that and more. I’ve heard a handful of the early radio shows, and I’ve watched some of the classic Buster Crabbe movie serials, but my strongest memories of Flash Gordon will always be those early comic strips. Continue Reading “These Classic Flash Gordon Comics Could Just Save Everyone of Us” »

Every so often, we see something that is so simple, yet so brilliant, that you can practically hear a collective slap to the forehead as we all ask “Why didn’t someone think of this before?” This is certainly the case with the wonderfully geeky and fun popular culture silhouettes from artist Olly Moss.

His project that depicted movie, video game, and television characters in Victorian-styled portraits took some time to put together. “Initially my plan was to include only a few of these silhouettes among other new work,” writes Moss, “but drawing them proved addictive. If I did Indy, I needed to do Han and Deckard. If I drew Batman, I needed to include the entire cast of Saved by the Bell. Obviously.” Obviously.

Moss ended up with more than 300, many of which are included in a new book, Silhouettes from Popular Culture. There’s Woody and Buzz, Dirty Harry and the Man with No Name, and Dave and the monolith. There’s no answer key or list of silhouettes, so the book becomes a big, long, and glorious guessing game. Some come very easily, while others are a little tougher. You’ll likely scratch your head on a few, but more likely you’ll be grinning when you turn the page to see Hogarth and the Iron Giant or Jules and Vincent. Not all are pairings, but all are very enjoyable.

Skyfall won’t be hitting theaters until later this fall, but if you’re feeling the need to get a Bond fix, Titan Books has you covered with the third edition of their James Bond Omnibus series. The book is packed with comic strips from the late 1960s and early ’70s when the artwork was being done by Yaroslav Horak for the Daily Express newspaper. In the third edition, seven great story arcs are covered, including the notable Colonel Sun storyline, taken from the first Bond novel written after Ian Fleming’s death.

While the book is nothing more than a collection of black and white strips – some color artwork or facts about the strip and its creators would have been nice – for 007 fans, The James Bond Omnibus 003 is a treat. Reading the stories in a serial format and enjoying Horak’s art can make for an afternoon or two of enjoyable reading.

I love cheesy sci-fi from the early 1930s through the 1960s. I make it a point to watch Forbidden Planet every year and my office is a collection of retro robots and rockets scattered on the shelves and desktop. There’s just something about these early days of science fiction, with the ray guns and finned rockets and numerous planets with breathable oxygen. I’ve read and enjoyed early Flash Gordon comics and listened to Buck Rogers radio serials. This stuff is over-the-top, completely unrealistic, and sometimes insulting to some cultures who are often portrayed as villainous stereotypes. But I still love it.

Recently I was introduced to a British sci-fi hero named Dan Dare. Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future was a full-color comic strip that started in 1950 in a British journal for boys titled Eagle. Each two-page weekly strip was told in a cliffhanger style of storytelling, with Dan constantly running into trouble and readers anxious to know what happened next. In the Dan Dare stories, the year is 1996 and travel between planets is fairly common. Dan is a Space Pilot in the Interplanet Space Fleet, and he’s surrounded by a host of supporting characters that include his sidekick Digby and his boss, Sir Hubert, the Marshal of Space.

Titan Books has been releasing the Dan Dare adventures in an ongoing series of oversized hardback books. They provided me with two books, The Phantom Fleet and Trip to Trouble, and all the two books have done is leave me wanting more. The downside is that there are currently about 10 or so volumes in the series, so I’ll need to spread out my acquisitions over the next few years’ worth of birthdays, Christmas, and other special occasions.